


Lost In The Crowd

by afteriwake



Series: bathe my soul in colours [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Colors, Costume Parties & Masquerades, F/M, Fleeting Encounter, Lost In The Crowd, Mystery Woman - Freeform, POV Sherlock Holmes, Random Encounters, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock-centric, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Strangers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 08:46:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6187933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is irritated that he was coerced into going to the ball, but when he bumps into a woman in the crowded room suddenly he can see yellow, the color he was unable to see. Unfortunately, she melts into the crowd again before he can find her, and even though he initially didn’t want to have a soul mate he vows he’ll track her down if it’s the last thing he does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost In The Crowd

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elliedilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elliedilly/gifts).



> And finally, Sherlolly is introduced! This was written for **elliedilly** who long ago asked for me to write a Sherlock/Molly fic with a " _meeting at a masquerade ball au (Victoria era requested)_ ," and since this is my Victorian era AU I decided to work it into this. This is also one of my answers for Day 2 of Sherlolly Appreciation Week over on Tumblr, so yay for that!

He detested the ton. Absolutely detested them. And it was events like these that reminded him why. If he had to listen to one more empty headed twit go on and on about the gossip of who was cavorting with who in what alcove or listen to one more so-called gentleman lay a wager as to which one of the naïve debutantes he was going to try and ravish and then discard, thus ruining her for any prospective husbands, he was going to cause a scene that would embarrass his mother, his brother and quite possibly the Queen herself.

There was a _reason_ he preferred the company of Detective Inspectors and their sergeants and constables if he had to have company at all. At least the things they talked about, for the most part, had _importance_.

He sighed and looked around the ballroom. Why on Earth did the colour of the season have to be yellow? It was a special sort of Hell, it seemed. Not only was the ambiance of the room in muted grey tones but most of the costumes the women of the ton were wearing were all various shades of grey as well. Thankfully there were those who went against the grain, boasting costumes of blue and purple and green and red, so at least he was not in his own personal dismal grey shrouded misery.

He sipped at his champagne as he stood looking out at the crush of people. Somewhere out there his brother was mingling with his soul mate, gathering information. He doubted they had danced all evening. Typical of him. Andrea had actually seemed to be a very interesting woman, not quite the type of person he would have pictured for his stuffed shirt older brother but still somehow exactly who he would have pictured for him, and instead of taking her out on the floor they were hard at work for Queen and country. They were, indeed, the perfect pair.

But as his brother was otherwise occupied and he had been here for an hour, by his reckoning, he could slip out unnoticed and no one would be the wiser.

He had situated himself by the open doors to the garden, and of _course_ they were farthest away from the doors. And with the absolute crush of people it would take time to get to the front of the house to get out to where the waiting carriages were, and then a bit more time to get to the hansom cabs. There was no bloody way he was going to go out in public in _this_ fanciful outfit, so if he didn’t decide to simply stay at his lodgings at Baker Street for the evening he was at least going to change out of his get-up.

He kept the mask firmly close to his face with one hand as he set his champagne on the tray of a passing waiter and then began the journey to freedom. Really, what had been the point of all this? He had a reputation among the mothers in the ton. Do not let your daughters get close to William Holmes, they said. He’s not marriageable material, they said. He’s odd. He has habits unbecoming of a gentleman. He’s involved with law enforcement. He knew they said that about him, even if his mother had tried to shield him from it. He wasn’t deaf, nor was he blind or imbecilic.

And to be quite honest, he preferred it. After _her_ , he preferred to be alone.

He’d had dalliances, in his youth. Most men of the ton had; it was expected. His dalliances, though, were fueled with a bit more than just the fairer sex. He had almost fallen prey to the lure of cocaine and morphine to detrimental effect. And then a woman had pulled him out of it, and he had formed an attraction to her. But she had not formed one to him. She had disabused him of any notion that she would _ever_ form an attraction to him, even though the signs he could clearly read said otherwise. And then she had disappeared without a trace. As she had not been his soul mate, he had shelved the emotions he had felt for her, boxed them up and put them in a deep, dark corner of his mind, and vowed never to feel such emotions again. And that had done him well over the years. He had kept a sharp, analytical mind, uncluttered by emotion.

He wanted to keep it that way.

It was slow moving towards his escape. No one was being polite; the room was warm and more people wanted to head into the gardens for a hint of cool summer breeze and a bit of privacy than wanted to leave for the evening. Events such as these usually went on until late in the evening, he knew that. It was as though he was fighting against the current. Finally he felt a foot step on his and that was enough. “Kindly watch where you’re going,” he snapped, looking down at a woman in a green dress, light brown hair piled in artful curls on her head and a green mask with peacock feathers on the sides.

“I’m sorry,” she said, scurrying around him.

He shut his eyes and shook his head, and when he opened them he had to shut them again almost immediately from the assault of brightness. The room blazed with warmth and colour. He stood stock still, like a boulder in a stream, ignoring the people pushing at him, and then opening his eyes again, more slowly this time. The room seemed ungodly bright, but it was so _warm,_ so _cheerful._ He looked around and saw the dresses the women were wearing and he could see what seemed like almost a hundred different hues of a color he had never seen before.

_That woman. That woman was my soul mate._

He turned and tried to see if he could spot her right off, but there were nearly ten score people in attendance and he was sure more were coming in at a steady pace. But surely she had to have realized it too? In a room like this it had to have been hard not to. He turned and began pushing his way back where he had come from. He hadn’t been interested in finding his soul mate before but now that he knew he _had one_ by God, he was going to make sure he at least knew her name before evening’s end if it was the last thing he did.


End file.
